EducationNews.org

THE 65 PERCENT DELUSION
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Gerald W. Bracey 

The "65% Solution" is purely a political gambit and a gimmick. There is no evidence to support it and there is evidence against it. 

The idea came from Republican political consultant, Tim Mooney. The money came from overstock.com CEO, Patrick Byrne. Byrne built a website, First Class Education (FCE) to push it. The name came from Washington Post columnist, George Will: "The 65 percent solution." Texas Governor, Rick Perry, enacted it by executive order. Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, wants it as a constitutional amendment. Missouri Governor, Matt Blunt will be satisfied with a law.

Mooney and Byrne hope to have "65 percent solution" laws in all 50 states by 2008. The laws would say simply that 65 percent of a district's operating budget has to be spent on "classroom instruction." The meaning of "classroom instruction," though, is quite cloudy.

FCE says it uses the definition of instruction provided by NCES. But the NCES document, Financial Accounting for Local and State School Systems does not define classroom instruction, but rather has a category of expenditures called "instruction" and a number of others labeled "support." These are convenient categories for reporting expenditures. They do not convey or even imply that "instruction" is more effective or important than "support." Another NCES document, Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 2002-03, says that nationally schools spend 61.3% of their budgets for instruction, 34.6% for support and only 4.1% for noninstruction.

The arbitrariness of the categories can be seen in what counts as instruction: classroom teachers and aides, computers, televisions, field trips, athletics, music, arts, tuition paid to out-of-state districts, and payments to private institutions for special needs students. "Support" includes teacher training, curriculum development, attendance takers, guidance counselors, nurses, librarians, and social workers.

Under FCE's interpretation of this classification scheme, expenditures for football uniforms count as instruction, expenditures for librarians' salaries do not.

Why 65%? There is no reason, good or bad. FCE takes the 61.3% figure and notes that only four states, New York , Maine , Utah and Tennessee spend more than 65% of their budgets on instruction. FCE reasons that because these states are very different from each other, it means that all states can attain the 65% figure. It has no evidence that 65% sets a worthwhile goal.

Is there any empirical evidence that 65% is a useful goal? No. Standard and Poor's analyzed district-level spending for nine states and found the correlation between percent of budget spent on instruction and test scores for each was zero. In fact, for Minnesota , which had large numbers of districts above and below 65%, Standard and Poor's found no percentage of spending acted as some kind of threshold.

In an undated, unsigned memorandum, circulated first only among Arizona Republican legislators-Mooney later admitted to the Sacramento Bee that he authored it--Mooney gave the game away and revealed the 65% solution as a purely political gambit. Under the heading "Political Benefits," Mooney says "Republicans will have a viable answer to 'in the classroom improvement of education" without the need to call for a tax increase, offsetting budget cuts in other popular programs or gimmick accounting and deficit spending."

Additional Benefits, according to Mooney:

"Splitting of the Education Union ." The proposal naturally pits administrators and teachers at odds with one another with monies flowing from the former to the latter.." Mooney apparently thinks teachers and administrators all belong to the same union.

"Direct Fix for Public Education." "While voucher and charter proposals have great merit, large segments of the voting public-especially suburban, affluent women voters-view these ideas as an abandonment of public education." Because the 65% solution helps fix public education-by definition-it might soften women up for charter and voucher programs and give Republicans greater credibility when addressing education issues.

"Establish the Debate on Taxes and Government Spending." Once voters see how much waste there is in education spending, they'll want to analyze waste in other government agencies. (The examples of waste given at the website are miniscule compared to recent revelations from the private sector and the largest is only partly the domain of education. The site complains about public agencies having to raise taxes in order to cover the retirements of public employees. One could see this as a responsible action in comparison to the many private companies who have reduced or eliminated pensions).

"Allows the Use of Unlimited Non-Personal Money for Political Positioning Advantages." This advantage would occur in Arizona where Mooney and Byrne have positioned the proposal as a public initiative, thereby bypassing the spending limits imposed on candidates, parties, and PACs.

"It Wins!" Like initiatives on tax limits, term limits and the definition of marriage, a candidate's position on the 65% solution could become a litmus test for candidates with the electorate.

Note that the 65% solution assumes that schools are currently adequately funded. All that needs be done is to reallocate the funds to reduce "waste" and increase "classroom instruction."

An Atlanta Journal Constitution editorial provided a useful comparison: The 65% solution, "makes as much sense as health insurers insisting that 65 percent of any claim go only to the surgeon, ignoring the costs of the support team, the nurses, the anesthesia, the surgical room and the medical equipment. Hospitals wouldn't stand for such a restriction, and neither should schools."

FCE was using an earlier edition. In the document cited here, only New York and Maine reach 65%.